Restless Men - by K Downing (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Around the turn of the nineteenth century Robinson Crusoe turns up remarkably often in material dealing with the emerging Australian colonies. The call to adventure and do-it-yourself guide to settlement in Daniel Defoe's novel resonated strongly with British explorers and settlers. But Crusoe did not make men restless: restlessness was the expression of unresolved tensions in men's lives between ideals, aspirations, traditions and material circumstances, the tension between what men felt they should do and what was actually possible. Crusoe seemingly reconciled these tensions, showing that a man could be both wild and domesticated. Karen Downing traces the links in a discursive chain by which a particular male subjectivity was forged. Through the rarely studied interrelationship between public representations of manliness and self-representations by men in more private writings, she reveals how restless men took their restlessness with them, so that the Australian colonies never were a solution to men's anxieties"--

Book Synopsis

Robinson Crusoe's call to adventure and do-it-yourself settlement resonated with British explorers. In tracing the links in a discursive chain through which a particular male subjectivity was forged, Karen Downing reveals how such men took their tensions with them to Australia, so that the colonies never were a solution to restless men's anxieties.

Review Quotes

"Downing's text is very neatly situated in the historiography of masculinity ... [it] has made a valuable and engaging contribution to the literature on masculinities. Her scholarship is exceptional and her book deserves to be read by all who are interested in this field." - Australian Historical Studies

About the Author

Karen Downing is a Visitor in the School of History at The Australian National University, Australia. She has a PhD from the Australian National University where she has taught gender and historiography and theory courses. Currently she is the assistant editor of History Australia.